


fickle as poison and hard as clay

by FeralPen



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Developing Friendships, Gen, Implied Relationships, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 14:26:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16834414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeralPen/pseuds/FeralPen
Summary: Frank meets the ghost of a devil in a bodega at 2am. They get coffee. It's surprisingly anticlimactic.Title from “Devils” by Amelia Curran





	fickle as poison and hard as clay

**Author's Note:**

> Purely self-indulgent snippet I whipped up. Not too much to it. Just a couple of guys having coffee and stilted conversations.
> 
> Can be read as pre-Kastle, pre-Karedevil, or my personal favorite, pre-all three of them.

Frank met a ghost in the canned goods section of a bodega in the earliest hours of the morning.

The only part if this that surprised him was that they didn't meet each other again fist-first. Instead, the tapping of a cane on linoleum had him looking up to see a familiar figure striding toward him. He rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“That you, Red?”

The ghost in question smirked at that. Strange to see him not only alive, but for once not dressed like an asshole in the red suit or playacting in his lawyer costume. No, apparently this version of him wore blue jeans and sneakers and had skin mottled red from the cold. He casually leaned on his white cane and peered down in his general direction.

“Hi, Frank.”

He grunted and straightened from where he'd crouched to study chicken noodle options. He gave Red another once-over. He had a fading bruise on his cheekbone. His knuckles were ruddy and scarred. You could take the vigilante out of the life, but the vigilante life didn't let go that easy. Frank scrubbed at the phantom itch of the bullet wound in his skull.

“Coincidence we run into each other here?”

Red shook his head. “My apartment's not far from here. I heard you talking outside.”

When he'd stopped to give a bum some cash. He hadn't said more than a few words. “That's some creepy shit.” 

He laughed. “Yeah, pretty creepy. I didn't know I could still pick you out at a distance.”

Frank glanced around. The bodega was practically empty. Cashier was messing with her phone.

“You come here for a reason?”

“Did you?” He shifted his weight minutely. “Karen said you were in Brooklyn last time she heard from you.”

“I move around. Ain't none of your business what I do anyway. 'Sides, weren't you dead?”

“Something like that.” He shifted again. “You want to, uh, you want to come to my place? I've got coffee.”

He scoffed. “You miss me?”

Red immediately scowled. “If you're gonna be an asshole about it, fine.”

“What do you want from me? A friend?” He shook his head and scoffed again. “We buddies now?”

“You're important to Karen,” he gritted out.

“And she's important to you.” He weighed his options. “Fine. I'll have some coffee. Gotta be better than that burnt shit Karen makes.”

Red's mouth quirked again. Without further ado, he pivoted on his heel and strode out of the shop with the same lazy confidence he'd walked in with. Frank shook his head and followed.

The sleety winter streets were slick with ice and glittering in the reflected light of storefronts and neon. Frank caught up to the steadily-marching lawyer. Their breath mingled in white clouds around their heads.

“Feels weird to not be fighting,” Red commented.

“Give it time.”

He didn't say anything to that. His cane swung in a steady arc, back and forth like a pendulum. Frank found he didn't mind the silence.

It was surreal, following the Devil of Hell's Kitchen into a quiet apartment building and up the stairs. The neighbors slept on, unaware of the two dangerous men in their midst. Red let him into his apartment.

Frank catalogued it out of habit. One door. Big windows. Stairs to rooftop access. No visible weapons, few corners for assailants to hide. Stark and bare, almost no knicknacks or personal items. He'd come up with twenty ways to escape or fight his way out by the time Red had hung up his keys and cane and walked to the kitchen.

“Coffee's still hot. Help yourself. Mugs are in -” he tapped a cabinet in passing -”this shelf.”

He refilled his mug and went over to the couch. Half the living room was strewn with papers in haphazard piles. Frank stepped around them to get a mug and pour his own cup. He chose to lean on the kitchen island rather than wade into the mess.

“Long night?”

The back of his head bobbed when he nodded. “Yeah. I'm working on a wrongful arrest case. Got caught up in fact-checking.”

Frank took a sip of his coffee.

“You haven't been active lately, Frank.”

“I'm legally dead.” The statement was enough to make him smirk again. “Karen didn't tell you what happened?”

Matt stilled and tilted his head like a bird. His hands paused in collecting his papers. “She mentioned a bomber. And that you saved her. She doesn't… like talking about it.”

“It was shit,” Frank agreed. “She did good. Big brass balls, that girl.”

“She's something else.” He hesitated. “So… You're done? You found out who ruined your life, and you just - put it up?”

There it was. Frank sighed and topped his mug off before he joined the other man in the living room. He took the chair.

“What else was I gonna do, Red? My family's still dead. Fuckers who did it are dead. I go out again, the Feds shoot me dead. Maybe I'm just… tired of being tired, y'know?”

Red seemed to chew on this. “So what now?”

He laughed harshly. “You tell me. I guess I gotta process shit. Go to _group therapy_ , talk about my _experiences in the war_. Buddy of mine says I'm making progress - whatever that means. I just saw all the shit with Fisk. Came to check.”

“On Karen?”

“She's a good woman.” He sipped his coffee again. “Glad she made it out of that shit.”

“Despite her best efforts.” Matt smirked. It was an ugly expression. “She almost got herself killed.”

“Sounds like her. More balls than brains sometimes.” He didn't know what expression he was making, but it couldn't have been pretty. Luckily his audience didn't care. “Thanks for not letting her get killed.”

“You love her.”

At once he snapped forward, ramrod-straight. The Devil stared back, unimpressed.

_”Don't ask me that.”_

His lips quirked. “Sore spot?”

“Oh fuck off.” He sat back and drank more coffee. “She's crazy about you, anyway.”

“I'm not fighting over her,” he said mildly. “She and I aren't - things are complicated. Just like you and her, right?”

“This what you brought me here for? To fight over a girl like a couple of jerk-off teenagers?”

“No.” Matt sighed and lifted his glasses to rub at his eyes. He settled the frame back on his nose. “I just wanted…”

“What?”

“Just wanted to talk to someone who got it.”

Frank scoffed softly. He scrubbed his head again.

“I'm sorry,” Matt said. “This was a mistake.”

“Nah, Red. You're fine. I get it.”

“You are going to visit Karen, right?”

He was suddenly uncomfortable. “I'm gonna check in. Might not stop to chat.”

“You should.” He looked more confident now. He nodded. “You really should. She misses you.”

“She say that?”

“She doesn't have to. Just don't come by our new office. Foggy'll lose his mind.”

That startled a quiet laugh out of him. “The lawyer guy?”

Matt nodded. “We're practicing together again. Nelson & Murdock & Page. Karen's our in-house investigator.”

His smile stretched over his teeth. “Good.”

“You'd better visit her,” Matt warned. “She'll track you down if you don't.”

“Duly noted, counselor.”

They lapsed into a more companionable silence. Frank's coffee was empty.

“You still do your crime-fighting shit?”

Matt set his mug down. His was empty, too. “Yeah. I just don't lie to my friends about it anymore.”

“Good for you.” It came out lame, but he meant it. “You've got good people in your corner, Red.”

“Do you?”

He thought about Curtis and David. He nodded.

“I'm glad.”

“Yeah…” Frank stood. “I'm gonna go now.”

“Sure.” The smile he gave him was small, but warm. “You'll come around again?”

“Maybe,” he hedged. “Might need to check up on you guys again. You piss off a lot of gangsters. Gonna get hurt one of these days.”

“One of these days.”

He edged for the door. “Be seeing you, Red.”

“Bye, Frank.”

He let himself out and tripped lightly down the stairs and back out into the icy air. It felt colder now than it had. He stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets.

He let his feet carry him to his local bolthole and his mind carry him to a pot of flowers on a windowsill and a neon billboard reflecting off of round glasses lenses. 

He scrubbed at his head. It was getting crowded in there with all these ghosts.


End file.
